The Universe According to Dr. Frog Ph.D.

June 16, 2003

The analogy has been given of Dr. Frog. A frog often lives in a well. The well is one meter wide, it is in the middle of a field and above the well is a tree and Dr. Frog has spent his whole life in that well. He has no experience beyond that one meter diameter well. But he has seen so much through the hole in the top of his well. Sometimes he sees nice blue sky and trees with green leaves, sometimes he sees clouds in the sky, sometimes rain comes through the top of his well, sometimes the leaves from the tree fall into his well. So Dr. Frog has experienced many things, he's seen so much. As a result of all of his observation he has been able to come up with his own particular universal view, "The universe according to Dr. Frog." He doesn't know there is any more than he has seen. He has only seen what is visible through the hole in the top of his well, so he thinks that's all there is, he thinks that's the universe. He has developed so much philosophy, so many theories to describe what is happening in his universe. But what can he see? So what is the value of his conclusions? His conclusions are useless. The difficulty is if somebody comes from outside to tell him about the actual universe he won't be able to understand it because it's outside the scope of his world.

One day another frog hopped into Dr. Frog's well. This frog had not been confined to a one metre wide well for his whole life, he had travelled quite a bit, he'd even seen the Pacific Ocean. So he tried to explain to Dr. Frog, "My dear friend, I have seen such a vast mass of water, it is called the Pacific Ocean." So Dr. Frog said, "Yes. Please explain it to me." But he was thinking in terms of the water in his well, so he thought, "Perhaps it's twice as big as my well, perhaps three times as big as my well, maybe it is even five times bigger." In this way he tried to understand the Pacific Ocean but it was impossible because he can't even imagine the greatness of the Pacific Ocean.

Our scientists are something like Dr. Frog. They are confident they have a clear understanding of the universe around them. After all they have such big expensive equipment, they get so many big grants from the government and they have so many respectable predecessor scientists who have put forward so many nice hypothesises which they now accept as facts. They think they are well situated, but what have they seen? We know this planet is only one of so many planets in the universe. Even within this universe we are insignificant but the creation of the Supreme Lord consists of not just one universe but of unlimited universes. In the Vedic literature the number of universes is compared to a bucket full of mustard seeds. If you look at a mustard seed you will find it is a very small seed. A whole bucket of mustard seeds is a huge quantity, millions and millions. So universes are clustered together like this and our planet earth is only one tiny fragment of one of the smallest universes. But our "Dr. Frog" scientists think they understand how things are going on. They think one day they will be able to control everything. One day they will be able to make it rain when they want, they will make man live forever, they will be able to do anything they like. However, in reality, their knowledge is comparable to Dr. Frog's knowledge of his universe. Of course there may be some glimmer of truth in some of the scientific theories but they are all full of defects: the tendency to make mistakes, the tendency to cheat, the problem of being illusioned and the difficulty of the senses being imperfect. These defects are present in all of our so-called scientific theories.